17 First Kisses Read online

  Megan taps on the side of my head with her knuckles. “Hello. He’s a band nerd. And besides, he’s a freshman. Freshmen can’t take you to prom. And I really, really want you to go.”

  Band nerd or no, Tanner is hot. She’s right about prom, though. I don’t want to be the only one of my friends not going.

  So a month later, here I am. In a pastel prom dress. Eating dinner at the Melting Pot with my two best friends (Britney didn’t get a date) and a guy I’ve only spoken to once before today. Corey, my date, sees a basketball hoop in every fondue pot. He lobs a strawberry across the table.

  “He shoots . . .” Plunk goes the strawberry into a vat of chocolate. “He scores!”

  He leaves his shooting hand hanging in the air, wrist bent, the way people do after sinking a ball. No one notices. Amberly tries to talk to her date, a baseball-player friend of The Collins Twins, but he seems more interested in checking his phone for sports updates. Chase and Megan feed each other bites of cheese- and chocolate-dipped food from the ends of their skewers. Corey is annoyed with the lack of spectators.

  He beams his brother in the face with a brownie bite. “Dude. Stop being such a fag.” I wince at his word choice.

  “What the hell, dude? I have a girlfriend,” says Chase.

  Megan glares at Corey, then raises her eyebrows at me as if to ask, Is your date seriously throwing food in a nice restaurant?

  I roll my eyes to say, Yes, I can’t believe he is so immature.

  Amberly and her date miss the entire exchange because she finally manages to get his attention by licking chocolate off the end of a banana. As soon as dinner ends, we catch a limo to the hotel room (a suite, actually: two separate bedrooms), where Corey pops open the cooler to reveal Bud Light and Boone’s Farm. He tosses beers to the guys.

  “We’ve still got an hour before prom. Drink up. Okay, ladies, who wants some . . .” He glances at the label. “Blue Hawaiian?”

  “Me!” Amberly already has a plastic cup from the bathroom, unwrapped and ready.

  “All right, Amberly! Way to be first to step up to the plate. Who’s next? Megan? What about you, Claire?”

  I shrug my shoulders and accept a cup of Boone’s Farm, my first real alcoholic drink. It’s electric blue and tastes like candy. Just before it’s time to go down for prom pictures, Amberly, Megan, and I realize we have tongues the color of Smurfs, so we cram into the bathroom to de-blue ourselves, while Amberly fusses with our already-perfect hair and makeup.

  The boys booked the suite at the same hotel as prom, so all we have to do is walk downstairs with our mouths full of Life Savers mints. In the darkened ballroom, a DJ presides over the floor while dancers get blasted with strobe lights and rap music. Megan walks in with her shoulders thrown back and her hand on Chase’s arm like it’s a freaking Hollywood movie premiere. The rest of us are close behind them, and we find a table for our clutches and jackets before making our way toward the sounds of DJ Beat Blizzard.

  The actual prom part of prom is much more fun than I thought it would be, probably because Corey and I spend it dancing and not talking. It passes by in a blur, until I’m dizzy from the Boone’s Farm and the dancing. Then the official part is over. It’s time to go upstairs to our hotel rooms and hang out until Megan and I have to be at her house for curfew.

  “Hey, we should do something next weekend,” says Corey. “We could go muddin’.”

  “Mmm,” I say, nodding so it kind of seems like I’m saying yes.

  muddin’ (noun)

  1: The driving of a truck through fields, swamps, etc., generally by a person of hillbilly descent, until said truck is covered in mud (truck is usually falling apart and often sports a rebel flag and/or gun rack and/or camouflage bug guard).

  2: Something Claire Jenkins will never do.

  “Here, have another Boone’s.” Corey tries to push a full cup on me.

  “Oh, um, no thanks, I don’t want to get sick off all the sweetness.”

  “C’mon, Claire, get in the game.”

  “I’ll take it!” Amberly grabs the cup and chugs like she spent prom in a desert.

  Shrugging, Corey guzzles another few beers. I don’t know when it happened, but we’re all alone now, sitting side by side on the queen-size bed. At some point, Megan and Chase went to the other bedroom and locked the door. Amberly and her boy never came back from the bathroom.

  “You look hot,” Corey says.

  He lays a ham-like hand against my cheek and smushes his face against mine. The kiss is all wrong. His lips cover mine, stretching over my whole mouth and leaving a ring of saliva. His mouth tastes like beer. I know I should be ecstatic. I got to go to prom with a senior. I am currently making out with one half of The Collins Twins. Any other freshman girl would be memorizing every detail so she could tell her jealous friends at school next week.

  Corey’s hands start to wander. Ewww. Don’t get me wrong. I totally want to do more than just kiss. But not in a hotel room at prom with a guy I barely know who has beer breath and hairy knuckles and speaks almost entirely in bad sports metaphors. I want to do all that stuff with someone special. Someone I’m head-over-heels in love with.

  He shoves a clumsy, sweaty hand down the front of my dress, and it is my cue to get out of this situation. Now. I try to push his hand away, but he doesn’t let me.

  I giggle uncomfortably. “Stop it.”

  But he doesn’t.

  “You know you want to. Stop teasing me.” His other hand slides down to my butt.

  Ugh. What a jackass. This guy is seriously starting to piss me off. But then noises that sound suspiciously like sex drift toward me from the bathroom, and my annoyance shifts to panic. Is he expecting me to have sex with him?! I thought the whole sex-at-prom thing was only on TV. I don’t, I mean, I can’t, I mean, I’m not ready for this. Especially not with him.

  “Corey, stop it! Seriously.”

  He keeps grinding all over me. He’s really not listening. But he wouldn’t do that, would he? He’ll stop. He has to. But he hasn’t stopped yet. What if he . . . ? This could get ugly. My right leg is about the only part of me not pinned underneath his hulking body. I slide it outward and upward, my heel scratching against his hip.

  “Oh, yeah,” he moans.

  He probably thinks I’m trying to wrap my leg around him. I’m not. I rest the spike of my heel on his thigh. And then I give him one more chance.

  “Please. Stop. Now,” I say through gritted teeth.

  He responds by trying to wedge his hand farther between my dress and my boob.

  “Huh!”

  I kick into his thigh, concentrating on projecting every ounce of soccer strength down my leg and into that spike heel. Success! I feel cloth rip, his soft skin and hard muscle. Most importantly, I feel him retract his offending body parts. He scrambles off me with a howl and lands on the hotel floor, where he curls into the fetal position with one hand holding his thigh.

  “You fucking bitch. I’m bleeding.”

  I stand over him with my hands on my hips. “I told you to stop. Asshole.”

  I need to get out of here. Fast. The anger is fading, and once it’s gone, crying is inevitable.

  “What’s going on?” Megan and her date appear in the doorway, and Corey’s face changes. He realizes he’s about to be exposed for the Neanderthal he is.

  “I can’t believe you guys set me up with this baby. She doesn’t even go to second base.” He runs a hand through his hair and stalks to the door. “I’m gonna see if Kirsten’s still pissed at her date. At least she puts out.” He turns back to me. “Call me when you’re ready for the big leagues, Claire.”

  Then he slams the door. Megan’s at my side in a second.

  “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine. Can we just go?”

  “Of course. David’s supposed to pick us up soon anyway. It’s almost midnight.”

  “What about Amberly?” I jerk my head toward the moans coming from the bathroom.

 
; Megan frowns. “She told me she might spend the night here.”

  So we go downstairs and we wait outside for her brother. I rub my hands up and down my arms and wonder if that’s what it’s always going to be like. If guys are always going to want more than I’m willing to give them.

  David finally pulls up in his old Accord. He and Megan have the same golden hair and wide blue eyes, but the waif look isn’t as attractive on a boy. Since he’s a senior, he should be at prom instead of chauffeuring his little sister, but he wasn’t feeling up to asking any girls.

  Once we’re both sitting in the backseat, it’s safe for me to bawl my heart out. I cry so hard I get the hiccups. I don’t bother holding back in front of David. We’ve been spilling everything in front of him for years now. He studies me with a mixture of curiosity and trepidation.

  “Is she going to be okay?”

  Megan nods and hugs me close. David cruises down the highway in silence. He’s as quiet as she is outgoing. And quiet is a really polite way to say he’s socially awkward to the point that people wonder if he’s autistic. People can never believe he’s Megan’s brother. And make no mistake, he is Megan McQueen’s big brother, not the other way around. She’s the girl every guy dreams about dating and every girl dreams about being (or tripping in the hallway), and he’s the nerdy genius kid who never talks. He’s much better when he’s around us, though.

  I finally stop crying enough to speak. “I’m so stupid. I didn’t realize prom meant sex.”

  “No, it doesn’t,” she says. “I didn’t have sex with Chase.”

  “You didn’t?” Hiccup.

  “I don’t wanna know,” says David. “Especially not while I’m driving. La-la-la-la-la.”

  Megan cups her hands over his ears like earmuffs. “No. I just gave him a blow job.”

  “Ah! I still heard that. I’m scarred for life.”

  She rolls her eyes.

  “So, that’s it?” she asks me. “He wanted to have sex and you said no?”

  “Not exactly. He wouldn’t stop, so I had to kick him off the bed.”

  “What! I can’t believe I set you up with that clown. I had no idea. Chase is so sweet.”

  When I tell them the whole story, David is shocked and Megan is seething. “That asshole. I hope it leaves a scar,” she says.

  “I hope you know you did the right thing, Claire,” David says gently.

  His words make me cry all over again.

  When we were in the hotel room, all I could think about was getting Corey off me. I reacted on pure adrenaline. But now, in the quiet safety of David’s car, I wonder if I overreacted. I mean, I did want to kiss him. Well, I thought I did.

  “I don’t know,” I say. “I keep thinking, did I really need to kick him? I could have told him I would tell my parents. I could have screamed for help. I know you guys would have heard me and everything, so I guess I was safe the whole time, really, but it didn’t feel that way. For a second there, it felt like he was going do anything he wanted and no one and nothing was going to stop him and it didn’t matter that I didn’t want him to. And I panicked. He’s probably telling everyone I’m crazy right now.”

  “Hey.” Megan grabs my hand and makes sure I’m looking her right in the eye. “David’s right. You did exactly the right thing. He’s the one that’s wrong for even putting you in that position.”

  I nod, and even though I’m still second-guessing my actions, I keep coming back to the same point. No matter what I did, no matter how I handled it or how many alternate scenarios would have worked out better, I didn’t let him do it. I chose what happened to me. Not him. Nothing else is as important as that.

  As soon as we pull into Megan’s driveway, a rap on the window startles me. It’s Sarah.

  “Where have you been? I’ve been texting you for forty minutes.”

  “Sorry, I—” I don’t really want to talk to Sarah about what happened with Corey. “But it’s not even one yet.” My first thought is I’ve been busted for drinking at prom. But I can tell from Sarah’s face it’s something much worse. “What happened?”

  “It’s Timothy,” she says. “He stopped breathing a little while ago, and they had to rush him to the hospital. I’m supposed to bring you and Libby now that you’re back.”

  “Do you want us to come too?” Megan gestures to her and David.

  “It’s probably best if it’s just family right now,” Sarah says. “But in the morning?”

  Megan nods. “We’ll be there. Call me as soon as you know anything.”

  “I will,” I tell her. Then I bolt toward the house in my bare feet and sequined dress. “What’s wrong? Is he going to be okay?” I ask as Sarah runs alongside me.

  I picture Timothy, his apnea monitor going off, his tiny chest still. We’ve had scares like this before. Everything always turns out fine.

  “It’s too soon. They haven’t told Mama and Daddy anything yet. But. Daddy had to do CPR.”

  “What? No.” I cup my hand over my mouth. He never had to do that any of the other times.

  I change clothes as quickly as I can.

  “I already put Libby in the car,” Sarah calls from the bottom of the stairs.

  She drives like a woman possessed, but it still feels like an eternity before we get to that hospital waiting room. We find my parents holed up in a couple of garish purple-and-yellow patterned chairs. Coffee cups in their hands. Stricken expressions on their faces.

  “How’s he doing?” I ask.

  Mama shakes her head.

  “We haven’t gotten an update yet,” says my dad. “They’re doing everything they can.”

  It’s the most frustrating answer you can get. I feel powerless. I wish I could be doing something. Anything. When I was in that hotel room with Corey, at least there was something to fight against. My sisters and I squeeze onto a couch that has no business holding three people. There’s nothing to do now but wait and hope and pray. Sarah holds me, and I hold Libby, and we cry salty tears into each other’s hair.

  Finally, a man in a white coat approaches my parents. I don’t like the look on his tired face.

  “Stay here,” Daddy says quietly.

  He and Mama follow the doctor to an alcove off the main waiting room, while Sarah and I watch anxiously. Libby doesn’t notice because she’s fallen asleep in Sarah’s lap. I can’t hear them from where I am, but I concentrate on the doctor’s lips, and the first words he says are “I’m sorry.”

  Mama lets out a wail that makes people stare. Daddy has to wrap an arm around her to keep her standing.

  “No.” I shake my head and repeat it over and over as the tears fall fierce and fast down my cheeks. Sarah sobs so hard her whole body lurches. This isn’t what was supposed to happen.

  My parents come back to us as different people. Broken people. Mama can’t speak, so Daddy does his best to tell us why we’ll never get to see Timothy smile again.

  “His lungs just gave out,” he explains. “With the infection . . . they were just too tired to breathe anymore.”

  It’s like someone sucked all the air out of the room. It can’t be true. Timothy can’t be dead. But I know by the way the light has gone out of my parents’ eyes that he is.

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

  HarperCollins Publishers

  ..................................................................

  Chapter

  9

  Someone is making turnip greens. It’s the first thing I notice when I get home from school—the smell is unmistakable, kind of like body odor but in a strangely appetizing way. I follow the scent into the kitchen, where I find my mom wearing a cherry-print apron and stirring a huge pot of greens. There’s a ham bone inside for flavor and a single whole pecan because she swears it neutralizes the bitterness or some crazy thing. Mmm. I can’t wait to pile hot sauce on them.

  “Hey, Mama. Those look delicious.”

  “Thanks, sweetie.”

  We completely sidestep
the fact that this is the first meal she’s made in two years that didn’t come from a cardboard box. I’m just relieved the Walmart incident is in the past and the good days outnumber the bad ones now.

  “Take a look at the table. I printed out some proofs from when I photographed your friend Glenn.”

  I flip through portrait shots of Glenn on his front porch and action shots of him at a football game.

  “They’re amazing.”

  “You think?”

  “Yeah. Why else do you think everyone at school is tripping over themselves to get an appointment with you?”

  Ever since my mom’s photos of Megan hit the school, Lily Jenkins senior pictures have become the must-have senior accessory. She’s taken almost a dozen now. Mama turns back to the stove to check the beeping oven and eases out a heaping dish of gooey homemade macaroni and cheese.

  “You made mac ’n’ cheese too?”

  “Mmm-hmm.”

  “I better put these pictures away so we can eat.” I start to clear the table.

  “I thought we could eat in the dining room, all four of us. Can you and Libby set the table? And maybe slice up some tomatoes too?”

  “Sure.” I race upstairs to Libby’s room with the goofiest grin on my face. She’s okay again!

  “Libs.” I throw open the door. “You won’t believe this.”

  She’s sitting cross-legged on her bed with her stuffed elephant, Mr. Heffalump, wrapped in a stranglehold of a hug.

  “Is everything okay?”

  She nods.

  I lower my voice to a whisper. “Guess what. Mama’s making dinner.”

  “I know.” Libby squeezes Mr. Heffalump tighter.

  I scoot onto the comforter beside her. “You do? Then why do you look so sad?”

  “What if I said the wrong thing or did the wrong thing and it ruined everything? I was scared to break the spell. So I hid.”

  “Ah. I know how you feel.” Those weeks after Walmart tore me to pieces on the inside, and with every high comes the fear of the next low. I give her and Mr. Heffalump a bear hug. “But we have to enjoy every second of this like it might not happen again. Because it might not. We have to hope for the best. Now come on. We’re setting the table.”